I thought ["Summer Sisters" ] would be a children's book - two girls who summer together from very different backgrounds. And then when it just kept going and going and going. They kept getting older.

It was a such a surprise, such an absolute shocking surprise to me to not know what you're doing and to find out that this thing that you don't even know how to do, that you're sure you don't know how to do, speaks to so many people and touches so many people in some way.

I'm lucky that so many children visit my website. At least I get to talk with them that way.

If all you leave in the library is books that you think speak to everyone, what are you going to have? You'd have nothing.

I have like two dreams a week that I have to write a paper that I'm late with or that I've gone back to high school and have to do that in addition to my current job.

Isn't that interesting. All the book clubs. I've never belonged to one.

[I]t's not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written. The books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers.